Recent Chief of Army Reserve (CAR) Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Plewes set a goal to have 85 percent of U.S. Army Reserve soldiers qualified in their military specialty by 2003. Individual soldier qualification (also called duty military occupational specialty [MOS] qualification or DMOSQ) has long been a problem in the Army Reserve, and DMOSQ has been the top training priority in the Army Reserve for years. Ironically, a key aspect of the strategy for reaching our goal of individual soldier qualification may be collective training.
It may seem strange to active component soldiers that the Army Reserve is concerned with duty qualification. Active units never see a non-qualified soldier. However, a significant Army Reserve mission is to train soldiers for their duty positions. Geography dictates many career choices in the reserve components, so soldiers must qualify for positions available in units near where they live. Thus, soldiers often first join a reserve unit and then are sent to training, either initial entry training or reclassification, based on their assignment. It is relatively common for reserve soldiers to become qualified in multiple MOSs as they rise through the ranks.
Even without the geographic influences DMOSQ would still be a problem for the reserve components. Part of the reason is administrative. For example, soldiers who complete MOS-- producing schools are not awarded the MOS concurrent with their course completion certificate. That information must be matched with other administrative information at the soldier's unit and then forwarded through the chain of command. This and other procedures leave plenty of cracks for soldiers' records to fall into. As a consequence, unit status report (USR) results in the Army Reserve have never really meshed well with reports based on the unit manning report.
In our own brigade, we made a major effort to correct the administrative deficiencies. We found, however, that even with these corrections, we were still at only 60 to 70 percent DMOSQ, a number similar to many other units. Where were the remaining non-- DMOSQ soldiers? What else could we do to achieve the chief's goal?
Careful examination of the nonqualified 35 percent revealed that fewer than 9 percent required further action on our part. Reasons included soldiers pending loss from the system, soldiers newly assigned, and other causes. Surprisingly, we found that soldiers attending or enrolled in a DMOSQ-producing school accounted for more than 25 percent of the soldiers. Of those, an astonishing 15 percent were newly enlisted soldiers. Our results are similar to those of other units.
The take-home lesson is that the school system is actually working quite well. Soldiers are enrolled in MOS-producing schools, usually by their second monthly drill, which is within about 30 days of assignment, and most complete their schooling and become DMOSQ.
If administrative difficulties account for only a part of the problem, where is the rest? The missing piece of the DMOSQ puzzle is retention.
Retention is a huge problem in most reserve units. Many units average a turnover rate (as measured on the USR) of 20 to 30 percent per year. In terms of combat power, a loss of 25 percent would cause a fighting unit to be pulled out of the line. Although losses like these would make a combat unit a candidate for reconstitution, the slow peacetime hemorrhage of soldiers has lulled us into complacency, and the Army Reserve is left anemic from slow but continuous bleeding. In fact, the situation is even worse than it seems at first look. The ability to fill units has not improved even though the Army Reserve has downsized by nearly 25 percent in the last 10 years.
Even cutting the loss by half would dramatically improve readiness in a short time. For example, in a unit of 100 soldiers, a 25 percent turnover rate (not unusual in line units) reduced to 15 percent would result in 10 additional soldiers. That translates to a 10 percent increase in available DMOSQ and an increase of one whole P-level on the USR.
Every day, enthusiastic soldiers join the Army Reserve, and every day too many quit. Lots of solutions have been tried with little lasting effect. Retention interviews, additional duty-retention NCOs, sponsorship programs and other initiatives are important but will provide little long-term benefit without an overall strategy.
In fact, there is no magic bullet that will fix the problems of retention in the Army Reserve. There is only the hard day-to-day work of building ready units and training ready soldiers. Any successful program must focus on two areas: intense challenging training on drill weekends and excellent support of soldiers. Implementing this strategy will require significant changes in our corporate culture and a dedication to the long haul.
First, there simply is no substitute for clear focus and high-quality realistic training. Aggressive training conducted every drill weekend is key to retaining soldiers. Challenging operations during annual training are important, but weekend drill training-- the training that an Army Reserve soldier sees every month-is the single most crucial element in the total training strategy. To be successful, training must be meaningful, doctrinally correct and all-consuming.
To be challenging and meaningful to the soldier, the training must be put in the realistic context of a unit and its wartime mission, and that means collective training. At first, it may seem strange or even counter-intuitive that collective training would be so closely connected to individual soldier qualification levels. In the light of retaining qualified soldiers, however, the connection is clear.
There is a corollary to these premises. Army Reserve company commanders and first sergeants are where the training rubber meets the proverbial road. For soldiers to train hard every month, commanders must be able to focus their attention on the planning, conduct and evaluation of that training. Reserve commanders bear many administrative responsibilities never seen by their active counterparts. In addition to the responsibility for training and care of soldiers, reserve commanders are responsible for recruiting and training non-qualified soldiers, pay and personnel files. Reserve commanders have less than 15 percent of the paid time of an active commander, and these administrative duties can easily overwhelm them and restrict their ability to plan and conduct the effective training that will improve readiness and retain soldiers. Any measures that would reduce the administrative load of the reserve commanders would have a direct and immediate effect.
The active component recognizes these functions as training distracters and commits additional resources to relieve these burdens from the line commanders. The other services also commit additional resources to support their reserve forces. For example, in a typical Marine Reserve company of about 150 marines commanded by a major, an active major, possibly another officer, and 10 to 12 senior NCOs and enlisted marines provide administrative support and training planning. As a result, Marine reservists are able to spend nearly all of their drill time training to the active component standards.
The CAR's goal is attainable. However, the weak link in the equation is retention. Retention has long been a hard nut to crack. Now the Army Reserve has entered a new world for retention in which the September 11 atrocities are likely to be a two-edged sword. Patriotism will induce many reservists to join or to stay longer, while disruptions to families and careers will cause others to reconsider their involvement. Retention will be even more tightly linked to DMOSQ levels.
To meet the CAR's goal, we need to focus on high-quality individual and collective training. Aggressive collective training at every drill is the single most crucial element of a total training and retention strategy. It takes time to build momentum in a unit's training program and for results to be realized. Senior commanders must invest in commanders, particularly company commanders, to help them develop and conduct the high-quality training that will pay off in retention and readiness.
[Author Affiliation]
By Col. Gary C. Howard
Army Reserve
[Author Affiliation]
COL. GARY C. HOWARD is commander of the 1397th Transportation Terminal Brigade at Mare Island, Calif. He holds a Ph.D. in biological sciences from Carnegie Mellon University.
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